Infrastructure improvements to City Corp.’s wastewater treatment to bring the utility in compliance with state and federal guidelines is expected to cost more than $8.5 million — an amount the organization will need help to obtain.

City Corp. board members indicated at the utility’s board meeting Tuesday they intend to ask members of Russellville’s City Council to provide capital for the project in the form of bond purchases. The utility would then make the bond payments, estimated to be about $600,000 annually, resulting in no net expense for the city other than a decreased credit capacity.

Russellville’s water and sewer systems are owned by the city and operated by City Corp., leaving the organization with no assets with which to qualify for a bond issuance on its own.

City Corp. General Manager Craig Noble said the utility expected to make the annual payments without increasing sewer or water rates for its customers. He said the $8,566,574 estimated outlay will pay for needed improvements for the utility’s wastewater treatment facility. Without the improvements, City Corp. could face fines from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ).

“We are confident that for $8.5 million we will have a treatment process in place that will make that go away,” he said.

Craig Johnson, a representative from Massachusetts-based CDM consulting and engineering firm, said improvements to the organization’s facility will allow City Corp. to properly remove nitrates when it treats water — a process the facility was not designed for.

Because the current facility was not designed for nitrate removal, the utility has had numerous violations where nitrate levels have exceeded permitted amounts. Johnson said City Corp. has until January 2016 to come into compliance with nitrate levels.

Other deadlines are approaching much more quickly, however. Proposed improvements to the treatment facility will also address total suspended solids (TSS), total residual chlorine (TRC) and phosphorus levels.

The compliance deadline for TSS and TRC is July 31, 2012, though the improvement project would not be expected to break ground for 12 months or more after it gets the green light from the City Corp. board. Contract engineer Clint Bell said, however, once the project is approved, a new corrective action plan would be submitted to ADEQ, showing City Corp.’s progress toward compliance and requesting a deadline extension.

“I still think we need to determine funding” before giving the go-ahead for design plans to be drawn on the project, Tommy Richardson, City Corp. board vice-chairman, said.

Irwin indicated he would be behind the project if it did not include rate increases.

Steuber asked Noble where funding for more than $20 million in proposed improvements to the utility’s wastewater system was expected to come from and if it would include rate increases. Improvements to the collection system is another aspect of City Corp.’s efforts to come into compliance with ADEQ guidelines. Noble said he did not know where funding for that project would come from, but said a rate increase was possible. He added those funds were not an immediate need, though the funding needs for the wastewater treatment infrastructure improvements were urgent.